


Windows

by B_Radley



Series: Gandalf's Way [2]
Category: Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Deathtroopers - Freeform, F/M, Growing Struggle, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Respite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 13:38:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley
Summary: Healing a hardhead.





	Windows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SLWalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Divertimento: Nothing Strenuous](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10496871) by [B_Radley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley). 



> For a tumblr prompt by SLWalker. "There's something wrong with its eyes."
> 
> Just now getting it posted to AO3

Ahsoka Tano opens her eyes slowly. She sits up with a start as she sees the institutional lights and neutral colored ceiling of the medcenter room. She blinks her confusion away as she runs her hands over her body, searching for injury.

She finds none. She smiles ruefully. _Doesn’t happen very often that I wake up in one of these without the taste of bacta in my mouth._ The smile fades as she thinks of the one other person that she usually has to be in a medcenter for. A low sound at her side reminds her. 

She lies back down and turns on her side. Jame Blackthorn’s breath flows over the skin of her shoulder. She moves her fingers gently through the gray hair on his forehead. Ahsoka touches the dark bruises present around both of his eyes.

They had not quite gotten to the ‘strenuous activity’ that he had told her that his doctor had prescribed. They were no sooner in bed than he had immediately fallen asleep in her arms.

She notices his eyelids fluttering. Her face brightens at the prospect of seeing his eyes again.

Except for last night, it had been nearly a year since she had seen them look through her. With their customary warmth and snark.

She smiles. A warm grin can be seen under the bruises. A hand touches her cheek.

The green gaze is once again focused, with its usual intensity when looking at her.

“Little late with my prescription, Runt. You’re slacking in your old age,” says the man who she had first known as Taliesin Croft.

She Smirks. “I held up my end of the bargain, Bait. The little bump on your noggin probably has affected your memory.”

He grimaces. “It is not nice to make fun of a severely concussed individual.” Jame says. He winces as he shifts his head slightly. Ahsoka’s eyes grow worried as he closes his eyes again. He opens them after several seconds. “I’m okay, Runt.” He grins again as she relaxes. He reaches up and touches her lips with his.

He feels the eyeroll through their contact. “Yeah, but I get a pass. It is allowable to make fun of the severely concussed individual, if said individual earned his concussion by being a dumbass and head-butting the helmet of an Imperial Deathtrooper,” she says in a dry voice.

He is silent for a moment. “It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” he says in a small voice. He brightens. “It did work a little bit. It disrupted the electronics in the bucket. She couldn’t see and the HUD went down. She had to pull it off.”

“Yeah. And then she used it to try to break a couple more of your ribs.” He makes as if to say something else, but looks away as he sees something build on her features. 

“What were you doing there in the first place? Bail said he had Nola assign your cell that job to capture one, not just you.” Her blue eyes flash at him. She stops, remembers his injury, and lowers her voice. “You are the Commander of a sizable cell, no, a combined-arms squadron, as they call it. You have two corvettes, a squadron of A-wings, and a group of commandos. Not to mention your own personal little band of Mando layabouts, led by your uncle. I think you could’ve found somebody with the appropriate skillset to accomplish the job without you charging in and challenging the survivor to a duel. I think you could find several someones.”

“Well, it was my job, Fulcrum,” he says, his own ire rising. “Why, because you’re the ‘Covenant?’ You ain’t getting any younger,” she replies. Her eyes soften. “Your Force-sense isn’t getting any more reliable, either.”

“I’m only thirty-seven,” he says indignantly. “Well, as you have often told me, ‘it ain’t the years, it’s the mileage, sweetheart’,” she says in her version of his Corellian drawl.

He starts to get up, thinks better of it. He looks down. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “But I can’t stop doing what I have done for my whole life, just because some idiot says I should have more responsibility.”

She places both of her hands on his cheeks. “I know. But as one of the idiots who decided that you should have that responsibility, I am one who can tell when you are being a dumbass.” She kisses him again. “Dumbass.”

Their gazes soften at one another. “Good job, by the way, on snagging the Deathtrooper. If we can break the conditioning, maybe we can find out more about the genetic enhancements that Zan Arbor and others put in them.” Ahsoka’s eyes grow troubled. “Bail told me that your folks told him that you had a chance and an opportunity to kill her. Why didn’t you? She was about to kill you.”

Blackthorn busies himself for several seconds examining the palm of her hand, tracing the lines with his index finger. “It was after I got her to remove the helmet. We were fighting; we had both gotten down to fists and whatever blunt objects we could find. I saw something in her eyes. Something I didn’t expect.”

He reaches over and takes a sip of water from the cup on the nightstand. “I expected to see just the blank eyes of the conditioning.” He takes a deep breath, and another sip. “I saw hurt. Confusion. Not just pain, but hurt.”

“I saw a human in there.”

“Do you think that the conditioning is damaged?” she asks. “I don’t know. Not the expert.”

She is thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe you and your people should be in charge of her debriefing.” She smiles wistfully. “You and your Zeltron psychologist can maybe make some inroads.”

He nods. “Okay. Send her over. If anything, Drop can sit on her if she misbehaves.” They both laugh. 

Blackthorn pulls her into his arms, holding her tight. “I miss you, _cyarika_ ,” he whispers. She doesn’t reply, just pulls him tighter.

They break free, looking into each other’s clear eyes. He sees the mischievous expression come over her face. “So, you think that you might be up for your ‘prescription,’ old man?”

“I’d have to be dead not to be.”

~=~=~=~=~=

In the lobby of the medcenter, the Senator and Viceroy-Consort of the Sovereign world of Alderaan looks up from his datapad. He turns to his Queen and ruler, who is listening to the faint sounds of shared laughter coming from the room.

She smiles as the laughter fades. Their eyes meet as the sounds take on a more muffled quality. Breha reaches out and takes his hand, their eyes locking on one another with familiar expression. They look back at the door of the room, where the guard on the door is trying to look anywhere but at his Queen and Viceroy.

Incongruously, as Bail reaches over to kiss his Queen, ignoring the onlookers in the lobby, he thinks of the dispositions of various operatives.

Of how it might be time for Fulcrum, in particular, to be shifted from her sojurn with the former Corporate Alliance ship of Jun Sato.

To a larger cell. One with her hunt-brother in command. Something that he has wanted to do for a while. 

For at least five of the entire seven years since they had fallen back into each other’s lives.

“Corellians, and Mandalorians, and Pantorans, and Zeltrons,” he whispers. 

“Oh, my,” whispers his wife back, as she hugs him fiercely.

~=~=~=~=~=

Dek Antilles watches as the Deathtrooper spasms in the harness of the bacta tank. He shakes his head as he thinks of what the woman must have endured during the enhancement process. 

Her broken jaw is healing. It will be up to the Tempest cell to try and reach her.

Her eyes snap open over the breathing mask. He slumps. Whatever had been in there, whatever humanity that both he and the Corellians had noted, was now gone.

Replaced by nothingness. Nothingness mixed in with anger and hatred.

_Blank._


End file.
